An image from Jasmere, which launched in December 2009 and concentrates on eco-friendly offerings.

An image from Jasmere, which launched in December 2009 and concentrates on eco-friendly offerings.

Photo: Jasmere

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This is the first item Ideeli CEO Paul Hurley says he purchased from the site: a For the Republic cashmere throw ($358.00, ideeli Price: $169).

This is the first item Ideeli CEO Paul Hurley says he purchased from the site: a For the Republic cashmere throw ($358.00, ideeli Price: $169).

Photo: Ideeli

Image 14 of 16

Billion Dollar Babes holds both live and online sales events.

Billion Dollar Babes holds both live and online sales events.

Photo: Billion Dollar Babes

Image 15 of 16

Jasmere founder Jeremy Kugel, who started the site in December with his wife, Katrina.

Jasmere founder Jeremy Kugel, who started the site in December with his wife, Katrina.

Photo: Jasmere

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Urbanbloke founder Kyle Wilkinson.

Urbanbloke founder Kyle Wilkinson.

Photo: Urbanbloke.com

Flash sales sites become big deal for shoppers

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Back in the dark ages, when Amazon sold only books and eBay was called Auction Web, shoppers still wanted the tactile experience of shopping. They relished the touching, the seeing, the trying on that came from searching for the newest of the new in real-world stores.

They found joy in the hunt for deals, bargains and steals. Closeouts, sample sales, warehouse sales, invitation-only sales the big bad daddies of retail offered 70 percent or even more off list price, and made endurable the rituals of sharp-elbow rack rushes, no-privacy try-ons and final sales.

These days, only the joy of the hunt (and the lure of free shipping codes) remains. Online, where the algorithms know your preferences, the proliferation of flash sale sites, and e-mail alerts from the ones you join, knows no end.

In the beginning, there was vente-privee.com. Thin, frugal and fashionable, the French were on to something other than the January Hermès sale when they launched in 2001.

Today, along with RueLaLa, HauteLook and Ideeli, they're defining the experience. They buy directly from manufacturers because they need bigger numbers of items than third parties, such as retailers, can provide. Membership for each hovers around the 2 million mark, with the median household income pegged at $100,000, give or take. The registers ring. For example, Ideeli is projected to generate $100 million in revenue this year.

Smaller sites such as Billion Dollar Babes, Jasmere and Urbanbloke seek to differentiate themselves from the Big Four by featuring emerging designers or tapping into a slightly different customer base. Billion Dollar Babes started in 2001, with high-end sample sales in Los Angeles, New York and the Hamptons. Teamed with a charity, the events featured bars and DJs, and the site plans to continue with live events, says managing director Dylan Brown, as well as online sales.

At Jasmere, the staff tests everything, says Jeremy Kugel, who launched the site in December with his wife, Katrina. They seek out upscale, eco-friendly items such as Brazil's Beija-Flor jeans and Greensbury Market, which ships fresh frozen organic beef, chicken and pork nationwide.

Urbanbloke concentrates on menswear, such as Morphine Generation and Tailorbyrd shirts, with the goal of securing 200,000 members, "not 2 million," says CEO Kyle Wilkinson. "We want to stay true to our purpose, with a very curated mix."

Indeed, there are so many sites that aggregators such as MyNines are emerging, offering notifications of various sales.

The sale sites share a similar model. Members learn of sales by visiting the site or from online notifications.

The sales begin on a predetermined schedule and last for a set number of hours. Reading the fine print counts. Sometimes returns are accepted, sometimes not. The sites all offer various inducements to get members to spread the good word - "Save!" or "Buy!" depending on your perspective.

If you think the timing was off for the emergence of a new way to spend money, think again. The sale sites "have created their own niche," says Tifani Marsay, women's fashion director for Macy's West, who teaches retail buying at City College.

"They came out when people were shopping more frugally. It's become more of a badge of honor to say, 'I bought it for $50 rather than $500."

Most of the growth has been viral, with early adopters joining, then telling their friends.

"In any economy, people care about how they present themselves," says Maybank. "They have to get clothing for that interview. We enable to people to get the wardrobe they want but at 70 percent off." Often the items are still available in real-world stores.

Shoppers broke down doors even as foreclosures rose.

Today, when a Gilt Groupe sale starts at 9 a.m. Pacific time, it's the norm for 400,000 to 500,000 shoppers to rush to the site. Imagine what happened during a sale of a certain designer's red-soled footwear, with 250,000 women trying to buy size 38. Servers slowed but didn't crash.

Yes, items sell out but in shopping as in life, only the strong and the site-savvy survive.

"It's a change in behavior - it's introduced a new way to shop and brought theater and urgency to online shopping that didn't exist before," says Stacey Santo, vice president for marketing and communication, and a member of the original team at Rue La La, which launched in April 2008.

With each site having so many members, the idea of exclusivity does seem a bit disingenuous. "I'm not sure if exclusivity ever was what anybody cared about anyway," says Paul Hurley, the serial entrepreneur who's now CEO and founder of Ideeli. The real level of exclusivity comes behind the glitz as the site excludes "spiders."

"Google cannot spider the site and see the prices. That's a big deal. We're perceived as a separate channel, and that's important for the brands. It provides them with a special service and doesn't conflict with what else they're doing online."

But not everyone is as bullish on the sites. Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University, calls them "a disaster for consumers ... when it comes to impulse purchases. They're very difficult to resist. (They're) tapping into an extreme fear of missing out. "

Faced with that, "the madness sets in, and the ability to think rationally about whether or not they want or need something" disappears.

The way the sites are set up "isn't an accident," Yarrow says. Retailers have studied how consumers decide to make a purchase carefully. There's enough data available so they know exactly what it takes to make somebody "pull the trigger. It's being used to the detriment of consumers who are trying to be frugal now."

She's confident, however, that shoppers will figure it out.

"Retailers are always going to come up with new ways to entice consumers, and the consumers always figure out what's happening to them."

The flash fashion players

Each site runs sales on a different schedule with different rules. It is not unusual for items to sell out quickly, even in the first few minutes. Discounts vary by item.

MyNines.com: An aggregator, the site helps shoppers track sales on different sites.

Splendora.com: The site's new Salescast iPhone app aggregates sales from its Top 20 favorites, such as the Outnet and Daily Candy's Swirl sales.

- E.H.

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